I can hardly believe it is November! The holidays are here, and the year is soon coming to a close…and what a year it has been!
The month of November is always special in our home. First, Landon and I both have birthdays a week apart. And second, we enter into the joy and fun of the wintery holiday season, which means seeing friends and family more.
If you are just reading this blog series for the first time, then here is a quick summary of where we are on the homesteading journey…
We purchased our dream homestead land in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan back in May. Our brand new 80 acres in the Upper Peninsula has apple trees, ponds, a stream, a small makeshift chicken coop, a barn (our future home), and a tiny home!
Well, it didn’t have a tiny home when we purchased it. It was only a falling-over shack, to say the least! This summer Landon made trip after trip up north to build us a tiny home from scratch and boy is it beautiful!
We found out in April that we were expecting our first child and that’s what drove us to pursue our dreams right now. With baby due mid-January, we are now preparing to list our house in Wisconsin on the market very soon and move into our tiny home officially after the baby comes!
Check out how our progress is going so far this month!
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Chicken Fiasco
Right at the very beginning of this month, we had another dog terrorize our chickens…check out the last homesteading update to see why we are so frustrated with neighborhood dogs roaming the streets.
Related Post: Our Homesteading Journey – October 2020 Update
But it actually wasn’t the same dog this time. This was a white dog, not much bigger than ours, that I had never seen before. Thankfully, I was home and noticed it almost immediately. Our chickens were out free-ranging and the white dog was curiously checking them out. I let our dogs, Brook and Brown out of the house to chase the white dog away and it was actually quite humorous to watch (not gonna lie). Our pups did so well and I haven’t seen the dog back again!
We have 25 hens and that night when I went to check on them, I only counted 24 hens. I couldn’t find any evidence that it had died but I hadn’t been in the wood line surrounding our house recently either to know for sure what had happened.
Well, sure enough, the next day I counted 25 hens in the coop! It must have just been so scared it slept in the trees that night. I sure am thankful we didn’t lose another bird. We are currently getting about a dozen or more eggs a day and have loved sharing them with family, friends, and neighbors!
Rusty
Meet our brand-new-to-us-yet-very-very-old-truck Rusty!
At the start of this month, we had Elmer, our trusty 2008 Mitsubishi Outlander, and Rudy, my precious first car, a 2003 Honda Accord I have had for about 5 years now. We weren’t using Rudy much, only for small errands here and there. It is old and not reliable but we kept him around for emergencies.
But, our brother and sister-in-law proposed a trade that ended up working perfectly! They had Rusty (not his name at the time), also a non-reliable car to simply use around town when needed. Well, with us moving to the homestead, we knew we wanted a beater truck of sorts to keep on the land and use to haul wood or help with other various projects. They only needed a car to get from point A to point B.
They proposed to trade Rusty for Rudy and we agreed! Landon met up with his brother Keaton one weekend to trade the vehicles and everything worked out great. I will miss Rudy but welcome to the family Rusty!
Old Cast Iron Wood Burning Oven
Landon is an amazing handyman and he has learned almost everything he knows from his dad. His dad is also so helpful with projects and gives us tools and resources from time to time.
One of our biggest concerns with the tiny home is that if the electricity goes out, we have no backup heat source. Winters are no joke up in the UP and with a newborn, that is just a risk we are not willing to take. We wanted some wort of fireplace or wood-burning stove in the tiny home in case the power goes out, but also, we just love having one in general!
We were looking into generator options but recently Landon’s dad gave us an old rusty cast iron over he was no longer using, and we plan on installing it into the tiny home if it fits! Problem solved!
Pregnancy Update
This month we had one more ultrasound at the suggestion of our midwife to check everything out and praise God baby is healthy and already head down! If something didn’t look right, we may have had to transfer care to the hospital and risk out of a home birth which would have been absolutely devasting to me. We are so thankful we can labor and give birth in the comfort of our own home.
I have started chiropractic care for my third trimester and am so thankful for the chiropractor I have. She specializes in the Webster technique and preparing the baby and my body for labor. In pregnancy, a chiropractor can help so much with the baby’s position. We need to have the baby staying in the optimal fetal position to not risk homebirth. A breech baby that doesn’t turn would mean transferring to the hospital.
We have also been continuing in our Bradley classes and are so thankful for them and our knowledgeable teacher. They have taught us so much and given us so much confidence, even to the point of us personally feeling comfortable enough to deliver our baby at home unassisted if necessary.
I am loving being pregnant and now that our current house is about to be listed on the market, it seems that the only last step to the moving up north journey is to have this baby. We can’t wait to meet you little one!
Moving All Our Things
Right in the middle of the month is when we rented a Penske, spent one day filling it with all our things, and the next day driving it up to our land and unloading it! We basically only have our bed, some clothes, and a couple of dishes left at our current home – practicing for our true minimalism up north I would say!
Let’s just say that overall it was such a fun adventure! And that’s because we got to do it with some of our closest friends.
First, Jimmy, Landon’s long-time best friend, and Jason, our friend from church, both came to help pack the Penske. Let’s just say I am not much help being as pregnant as I am! We had sold almost all our furniture and packed the few boxes of our items inside in Rubbermaid totes, so most of the moving van was actually garage/outdoor items. I couldn’t believe that we filled an entire 26 ft truck still after selling and getting rid of so much!
That was Friday. Then Saturday, Carissa and Nolan made the long crazy drive with us and it was a blast. Picture this: all four of us caravanning along the highway in separate vehicles. First, we had Carissa leading the way in their car with the dogs, then Nolan driving up Rusty to leave on our land, then me in Elmer pulling a trailer with our 4-wheeler Monty inside, and then Landon driving the huge Penske moving truck!
Landon discovered a walkie-talkie app and so we all used that to communicate as we drove. It took most of the day and the weather was starting to get nasty when we arrived up north. Landon and Nolan got to work unloading the moving truck and Carissa and I set up the tiny home. It was actually starting to look and feel like home and it brought tears to my eyes.
Somehow all four of us and four dogs fit in the tiny home that night. Then the next day, we had some fun, ate some good food, and headed home. We are so tremendously thankful for everyone that helped us with the move. It wasn’t easy but it was an amazing feeling knowing that we are so close to living on our homesteading land full time!
Rabbit Tragety
With all the craziness of the move and the busyness of the season, we weren’t paying as close attention to the animals. I started to notice that one of our male rabbits, Thyme (the one with the squishy looking face) had some almost black crusting on his fur.
We looked him over and found that it was all over his backside, even on his private parts. Google wasn’t much help in figuring out the issue and if it was treatable. All we could figure out is that it was some sort of skin infection or bacteria. With no money for the vet, and his meat now being bad, our best option was to simply put him down. Landon took him out back and shot him to end it quickly.
It is always so sad seeing an animal die, and it is always so had suffering losses – from the time, care, energy, and money you have put towards this animal – that it makes you almost doubt or second guess your abilities. But, we have to continue to remind ourselves that we are brand new at raising and breeding rabbits and with this experience just comes another opportunity to learn!
We are so thankful that we have two healthy growing babies that survived, another male, and now two more pregnant females. Next month we will have two more litters, Lord-willing, and our rabbitry will really be taking off then!
Thankful Thanksgiving & Baby Shower
With the last weekend of November came Thanksgiving! We were so thankful that we could travel to Keaton and Sarah’s, our brother and sister-in-law, in Marion, Indiana. They have a only nephew, Hezekiah, and we hadn’t seen him since June so it was a blast spending the day with them and also playing games with more family over Zoom!
The rest of the weekend we were in Michigan visiting my parents and siblings. They threw us a baby shower that Saturday morning and it was such a blessing. We are so thankful!
Seeing so many old friends and family we rarely see now brought so much joy to our hearts. It was so fun sharing with them more details about our land, move, and the pregnancy! We felt truly loved and are so thankful for all the blessings the Lord has poured on us.
We can’t wait to see everyone again soon when the baby comes!
While November had so many big events, it was such a joyful month. We have so much to be thankful for and Thanksgiving was close to our hearts because of that.
Homesteading is always a journey of highs and lows and we really experienced some wonderful highs – each of which comes from the Lord. Glory to God!
Check out next month’s homesteading update real soon and….A BONUS blog post where we look back at 2020 and count our many blessings!
Talk soon,
The Adventuring Alberts <3
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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